Automated workflow technologies have been touted as a panacea for enhancing productivity in the workplace. By bringing the science of computer automation to business processes, workflow technologies promise to apply the power of software to the way companies do business.
Automated workflow technologies can represent a business process in software as a workflow. Workflow designers typically break the business process into discrete pieces that are to be performed and monitored until some completion criteria are achieved.
A persistent problem with workflow technologies is that they are typically incomprehensible to the average business worker. For example, constructing a workflow typically requires programming skills and extensive knowledge of the workflow system. Even sophisticated information workers generally do not possess the requisite programming skills and are not able or willing to learn yet another information system for the sake of utilizing the workflow technologies.
In addition, information workers tend to lose interest in the workflow system because it does not reflect the way they actually conduct business. For example, a small exception in a process typically cannot be accommodated by the workflow system, so it can often inhibit accomplishing the business process rather than facilitating it.
Conventional approaches to automated workflow are typically too complicated and rigid for actual worker needs. Thus, there is still a need for improved techniques for automated workflow.